Use of clipping path before creating an invisible mannequin effect in Photoshop

If you are not into apparel photography shooting or editing business or not an apparel business owner, you might not be familiar with the terms ghost mannequin or invisible ghost mannequin. However, you must have seen those clothing product photos on various websites where there are 3D images of clothing items showing the shape of the clothing and giving you a feeling like someone is wearing the item.

You must have also see those dress form mannequins that are displayed on the sales floors or clothing product stores. Basically this is a Photoshop trick to create an invisible mannequin effect for the clothing items. Not sure who is the genius behind the invention of this invisible mannequin photography, but for good period of time, it is being used as a most popular way of photographing a clothing item.

You might be wondering how the process is done where it gives the viewers an illusion of someone or some mannequin is inside the clothing product but the person or the mannequin is invisible. Basically it is just a Photoshop trick. If you are familiar with Photoshop, you would probably know how it is done. At least you will know what clipping path is and how it is used to clip a product out of an image.

Basically clipping path is used to cut the dress out of the mannequin. Typically 2 different images are needed per product. Both of the raw images are clipped at the initial phase. These two clipped images are then joined together to form the invisible mannequin effect.

Typically business owners outsource the clipping path service and the invisible mannequin effect creation in Photoshop. Whether it is a small company or large apparel company we are talking about, most of the companies these days are finding that outsourcing these processes are time and cost efficient.